Business and The Sustainable Development Goals

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) follow and expand on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While the MDGs were focused on poverty mitigation through aid programs and new policies, the SDGs are a novel and global set of goals that UN member states are expected to include in their agendas and policies by 2050.
This technical note invites students to discuss the next steps in accomplishing the proposed goals, which for the most part are in agreement with the transformations developing countries will undergo in the coming years. The costs of achieving the new goals were estimated at between $3.3 trillion and $4.5 trillion annually, and the private sector was expected to cover what the public sector could not provide in order to support the economic expansion of emerging economies. This technical note highlights the obstacles and constraints that debilitated the achievement of the MDGs and opens a debate on the best execution plan to achieve the SDGs. The SDGs are a very ambitious project and require a very resilient implementation process to succeed and guarantee dignity for everyone on the planet.

Learning objective
This technical note was developed for a course on strategy and sustainability for MBA and Executive MBA students. It serves to promote knowledge of global policies for emerging economies in developing countries and shows how private and public companies are the critical drivers of future sustainable development.